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tv   U.S. House of Representatives  CSPAN  September 27, 2012 10:00am-1:00pm EDT

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every 30 days? i am hearing this woman from tennessee slandering the president. and i recognize your voice. and so should you. i do not know how you do that. my main point is, once the republicans can get in there, one more time, there will have a sealed permanently. but people in the upper echelons financially -- they are using simple minded people who are in the democratic party some and the republican party to get what they need to go against their best interests to further them. you cannot support a man who lies to you constantly. host: but as a last call we will take. thank you for joining us. another one comes your way at
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7:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. ♪ >> here is a look of what is coming up on c-span 3 at 12:30 eastern, the federalist society hosts a discussion on the supreme court term which begins next week on october 1. the focus of upcoming cases include affirmative action at the university's, human rights overseas, national security and privacy issues. the discussion will be live at 12:30 on c-span. and at 5:00 p.m., we will go live into the united nations in new york.
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the president of libya is speaking before the united nations general assembly. president obama spoke on monday. it will be the president of libya today making remarks at 5:00 p.m. eastern. tonight we have more campaign 2012 coverage with the nevada senate debate. and democratic congresswoman berkeley. but consider this to be one of the closest races. that is tonight at 11:00 p.m. eastern. and on c-span radio and c- span.org. >> to foster work and enterprise in the middle east, and other developing countries, i will initiate something i will call prosperity packs, working with the private sector. the program will identify the barriers to investment and trade ind entrepreneurship an
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developing nations. in exchange from developing nations will receive united states assistance packages focused on developing the institutions of liberty, the rule of law and property rights. >> we believe that freedom and self-determination are not unique to one culture. isn't that simply american values or western values? they are universal values. and even as there will be huge challenges to come, i am convinced that ultimately, government is for the people, by the people. it is more likely to bring about the stability, prosperity and individual opportunity to serve as a basis for peace and our world. >> a october 3, mitt romney and president obama will meet in their first presidential debate, moderate. watch on c-span.
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your reaction, calls, e-mails and tweets after the debate. follow online at c-span.org. >> george washington university hosted a discussion yesterday on oil and gas production in the persian gulf. focusing mostly iraq. they speak about tensions between saudi arabia and iran. -- for the fall semester. and i would just mention in the way of an advertisement that we will be having our next program on october 23. it will be on jordan. jordan, i think it put a title out there of -- in the cross
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hairs again. we are fortunate to have the vice-president for studies at carnegie endowment for national peace. and a very good personal friend who will be coming as well as dr. kurt ryan, an associate of the latin .ppellati tonight as we gather, i always express my appreciation to the exxon mobil corp., which is a donor. it gives us substantial contributions each year to put on these programs, pay for expenses. and bring some of these guests from out-of-town. i think of them. tonight, we are going to focus on oil and politics in the persian gulf. and really focus on the prominence of this area and the
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energy market. the persian gulf area as 60% of the world's proven oil reserves. and 40% of the world's proven gas reserves. in fact, six of the top 40 in the countries in terms of proven oil reserves are and the gulf. five of the country's top oil producers are also located there as well. the added states foreign policy, toward the persian gulf, has focused on ensuring the free flow of oil from the gulf to global markets. and opposing the nomination of that area. traditionally, the soviet union, but in recent decades, iraq under saddam hussein. this has embroiled us and two wars.
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and lead to a significant military, a commitment of military assets in the area. the question arises regionwide is the united states extended such efforts and so much of its assets? when we are a number three oil producer in the world. and we import less than 20% of our crude imports from the gulf. these are the issues we will explore today. is the global energy marketplace changing? is the persian off oil and gas still important? is it likely to be in the future? where the dynamics in the immediate -- -- the impact on the area's ability to produce? or to export? we have with us tonight three very distinguished panelists. on my right, presently an adjunct professor at the school
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of business at georgetown university. for the previous 10 years, dr. was a visiting professor at georgetown university, teaching courses on business and energy in the gulf. he had 25 years' experience. which 10 years was spent in the middle east, including two years in -- covering saudi arabia. he is a managing partner of the lafayette group, a u.s.-based consulting and investment company. his research centers on the influence of the persian gulf. political and social variables on the oil market. he focuses on the industrialization of the gulf, a particular to the growth of the metal and chemical industry. he holds and ma and phd from
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yale. next to him, the chair at the institute for national strategic studies at the national defense university. of the past two decades she lived and worked in the areas of iraq and syria. her current research focuses on the relationship between energy sector development, forms of government and regional relations in the post saddam hussein iraq and the other newly federalized states. she specializes in pose conflict relief and reconstruction, having worked for the office, united states office of foreign disaster
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assistance. and post-gulf war and post- saddam iraq. she has also studied in paris. she is an adjunct professor at the center for peace at georgetown university, and a contributing writer and a member of the international institute for strategic studies. ew.her right is mathie a foreign affairs officer. he has covered the energy sector
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in iraq for almost 10 years for the department of the state and defense department, including two a temporary assignments. his total service and iraq is roughly equivalent to a full toure. and he developed and overseas technical assistance program for the iraqi oil with the department of commerce and with the department of interior, working with the department of energy. central bank of iraq. the total well over $40 million. he has received a superior honor award. and an extra mile award during his years of service at the state department. is received a certificate of achievement for most significant impact on the intelligence community from the defense intelligence agency.
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a native of new jersey. the most important point of his entire biography is that he is a graduate of the george washington university. school international affairs. [applause] and he did his master's studies at boston university. i have given you a rather extensive biography. these are certainly three people that are well known and outstanding experts in their field. at this time, i will turn it over to dr. >> thank you. i think the ambassador gave us a rather interesting assignment here. we probably need about five days to review this. but it will be quite
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interesting. perhaps more generally, we can give a general view -- what i view the problems in the gulf today. and i might set up the situation for the next guest. she is such a well known expert on these issues that she might pick up on a few things i say and explain in great detail. but i am really looking forward to hearing from both of my colleagues on this panel today. they are well known experts. and it is very interesting. let me just start a little bit giving you a general view of what is happening in the gulf today. very quickly, we have this situation here -- ok, we have a
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what they call -- we have what they call the persian gulf on that side. and the big harbors in saudi arabia. and the main oil harbor and the world. then, you of the very big -- in iraq right here at which touches to wait. everything in the brain is the oil field. and most of the iranian oil is on this side. -- everything in the green and is the oil field. and most of the iranian oil as on this side. at this point, you see the top
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of the saudi field right here. the grain markets are the gas field -- the green markets are the gas fields. the tension today -- it is based on the big battle between iran and saudi arabia. there is enormous tension between the two countries, and basically what we are saying -- seeing today is syria and iraq -- is a proxy war between iran and saudi arabia. the saudis want to really replace -- and i talked at one. of this, which would go from iran to syria and basically control that area. and put a wedge between saudi arabia and turkey. it seems to me that is one of
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the things we are witnessing today. the saudis are trying to replace this. where do have a saudi arabia -- linking with the turks, really to weaken the iranians, to weaken iran. let us not forget iran has more people. saudi arabia as relatively weak compared to iran. the saudis really want to break the back of the run before it is too late. the only way they feel they can do that is to really weaken syria, because of the link between syria and them. outt implies getting a sssad
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of there. and the turks are working with the saudis on this matter. this is the basic background of what is going on in this area. they are saying, if you start really creating too much trouble, we can always -- 16 million barrels a day of oil are coming through here every day. and perhaps we do not talking enough about that. all of the natural gas which is produced by catarrh, about 60 million tons going to the far east. there is no way that it can go any other way. another big problem for the gulf countries is that everything has
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to do with the harbors, they are in my view one of the wonders of the world. and all of the logistic centers would disappear. because it is entirely dependent on that waterway. the imports and kuwait would stop. the exports from iraq and the imports into iraq would also disappear. of course, if the iranians were going to cut this, there would be cutting their own throats. because of all of the iranian oil leaves iran from the harvard right here. and those -- from the harbor
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right here. and those -- if they are desperate enough they might do it. in terms of the dependence, it is interesting to note that, saudi arabia is slightly less dependent on this and then the other countries because they have this big pipeline in the center here, which can actually be modified now to carry 5 million barrels of oil per day. and they can take 5 million barrels of oil from here and the big center here, all the way to the red sea. they are now exporting about 9 million barrels of oil. it would be better off than the
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others. the uae has built a pipeline. and that can carry 1.5 million barrels a day. the kuwaitis would be hurting. the iraqis would be hurting. but the saudis and the ua and hurt less. in many ways, i am not optimistic that this would be blocked. if they were, it might only be $100 a barrel to $300 a barrel, instead of 500. [laughter] but it is still quite a difficult situation. so, what we are seeing here, a little bit of tension at the kuwait level. some tension between kuwait and iran on some of the offshore fields. the iranian and the kuwaitis are claiming the same field.
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there is some tension also between katar and ir ifan. -- and iran. it is true, they are using the huge gas field. and they are using this to make the average capacity of 77 million per year. they also now -- i forgot to the amount, i think it i1.5 million barrels per day of gas to liquid. they have a very large fertilizer plant. they also make aluminum. using energy from the gas. they are using this.
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the iranians are climbing that this could create migration of their gas, which is not being used, into katar. which is unlikely in the next six months, but over 20 years, there could be some migration apparently. but it is a bit of an excuse for the iranians to put pressure. the iranians could, if they had the technology, could use the gas in the same way. remember, iran is the second-largest supporter of -- exporter of gas in the world. the gas fields are so badly managed that they cannot produce the gas which they have. the have to import gas. so it is a little crazy. but this is really hurting the iranians. because they need foreign
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technology. the french are providing technology. the norwegians were providing technology. american not work there at all. they have been making deals with the chinese. the chinese have signed all of the contracts. a big contract on while around here -- supposed to spend $10 million getting oil out of there. they have yet to produce oil yet. i think the chinese are doing nothing. they are very actively doing nothing on purpose. the chinese do not have the technology to drill offshore to get the gas here. they would need a french or an american company to do it, or a norwegian company. they cannot do it. those three countries will not work with iranians.
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the tension is here. the tension is very intense. and the fear of many is that it could escalate and get out into an actual war. let me go on to iraq a little bit. this is where we have a lot of problems coming. and, just to put you in the picture, this is perhaps the second largest in the world. and it was really underutilized. it was underproducing. less than 1 million barrels a day. because it did not have, after all of the war's end the sanctions against iraqis, there were in bad shape. but, iraq has signed some interesting contrasts with all of the very large companies in the world. they have brought and all of the big technology. all of the big oil companies.
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and they made service agreements with these companies. a good example, since we are here because of exxon mobil, exxon mobil has a contract to pump, to increase production to 100,000 perils' a day. -- 100,000 barrels a day. if they do that, they can get $1 for each barrel. get out of the ground, what they have paid or 8 cents. that is a very, very low cost. exxon mobil was never very happy about its contract. bp has a similar contract. and they are born to increase capacity hopefully to 4 million barrels a day.
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soon. the iraqis are signing contracts on all of their oil fields, not including this field, but all south of iraq to increase production to 12 million barrels a day. that is with probably -- that will probably not happen. iraq would increase its production to about 6 million barrels a day within 10 years or so. which means that iraq would be the second producer of oil, well, the third after russia and saudi arabia. but that means that there would be the second-largest exporter of oil, over 5 million barrels a day. there are problems with that in a sense. the foreign companies are not very happy with the pricing. everyone was so eager to get
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their foot in the door and iraq, iraqis are able to negotiate this really, really well. as i said, their first bid, exxon mobil, was at $4 a barrel. it went down to $1.40. that was very good for the iraqis. however, exxon is not very happy about that price. on top of it, exxon is extremely worried that there will never be able to increase production because of the bureaucracy and iraq is unbelievable. for instance, to bring the production out of the ground requires putting into the grounds of a very large williams -- the technique used by the saudis in this field. and they produce 5 million barrels a day on this field. and they are putting in at 6
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million of water. exxon wanted to do this which is sealed right there. and they have never gotten the permits to get that pipeline through to the field. just -- there are so many authorities involved in the decision that they cannot just get the permit to do it. they are extremely frustrated. all of the companies that are active in france are frustrated by the bureaucracy. everyone is afraid that it is going to happen very quickly. even the 6 million barrels a day within 10 years is quite iffy. what happened then, exxon turned around and in the next few months, has signed a very large contract. they have been matching their oil independently from the rest of the country.
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to be great annoyance of the iraqi central government. a huge tension between the two. originally, they had an arrangement where they would be part of the federation, there would get 15% of all of the payments for the whole federation. which is very attractive. because it makes a huge amount of money. today, the iraqis are producing a 2.8 million -- exporting 2.8 million barrels a day. that creates approximately -- about $15 billion a year. if that were the case. and they produced today themselves 150,000 barrels a day. which really amounts to only $3 billion. obviously, that should be very much in favor of them. however, there is something else
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happening here. they wanted the independent to bring all of the companies they want. and the company's want to bring into kurdish territories. because they would make maybe $20 to $30 per barrel. the agreements are very favorable to the large, multinational companies. why do they do this? because they wanted them there. why do they want them there? because they know that ultimately there will produce a lot more oil through these big oil companies. let me just hammer this a little more. and then she can talk about this. but when exxon mobil decided to sign a contract, they took the risk of losing -- that is a big
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deal. we were thinking of at least having access to 1 million barrels. were they have to pay the iraqis more money. now they are worried they cannot do that. so they are going to kurdish territories on the small fields and kurdish provinces, which should produce up to 200,000 barrels each day. there were always wondering, why did they decide to go into kurdish territories? what is the big issue? the kurdish provinces are just at the north. there are three provinces at the north. that does not include this field and this town here. and this traditionally is the center of the kurdish life, going back hundreds of years.
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and replace the kurdiss. after saddam hussein was kicked out, these kurds say there should be a referendum. their own group of provinces the part of the zone. supposedly, that is supposed to happen and has never happened. nobody wants it. kurds are coming in every day to climb back. many are leaving. and it is a kurdish city today. and it became a kurdish city and all of a sudden -- what is under it would be part of the kurdish territory. i would wager that the kurds
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would be very independent. that is really, it requires three things from the kurdish standpoint. it would require, to get the oil, to be able to get the oil out, you have or know, you have to get it out of there. you can only get it out by pipeline. today there is a pipeline from the field with a capacity of 1.5 million barrels. but go down to the iraqi territory and up through turkey. but it goes through iraqi land, so to speak. so iraqis could -- that pipeline. the kurds cover already signed a contract to put up the pipeline directly through their own territory into turkey. there would also have to have turkish support. for the pipeline to work, it has
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to go through the kurdish territories. third point -- those are the three major point. whether the kurds would agree to this, i do not know. but it is very counterintuitive that they might. because today, the largest investors are the turks. and they are very close to turkey. there are far from the problems of syria, complicating matters tremendously. de turks would like to have reached the turks would like to have that not far from their border. i will leave it at that.
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and you can have fun with this. >> you leave me with very easy issues. thank you. i would like to thank you for inviting me here. can i moved this? -- can i move this? ok. thank you. i would like to pick up on some of the issues that's jean- francois seznec discussed about the rock. largely, to look at this great -- that they have, and why it is unlikely to be realized jean- francois seznec said, 12 million 4 millionor an-- port m iffy
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iffy 4 million -- or an iffy 4 million. i am not as optimistic. and i will give you the reasons why. and what are the implications on the key regional actors. mainly turkey and iran. first, some of the important potential that iraq has -- iraq has an estimated 143 million barrels. inclusive of the kurdish region. they may say and some of their public relation to statements that they have 45 million, but they have about 17. the rest is in disputed territory. in total, you can look at 143 million barrels. the have not brought on
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something -- they have brought on something to be commended. over the last several months, they have realized production levels pre-war at over 3 million barrels a day. 70% of which is associated in the southern field. about 50 to 20 trillion in the northern areas. one of the problems is that up to now most of the focus has been on the oil potential. there is no infrastructure for a gas market. aside from these political issues, i will leave to map some of the technical challenges.
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assessing the field, infrastructure. the issue that is the biggest is the unresolved political issues, rooted in the constitution and the nature of the iraqi state, the solar energy sector has been set in high politicized context. so that the 2005 constitution and that people hail as a mark of federalism and iraq is actually a disaster. it intentionally -- so that key issues of resource, revenue and power sharing were never fully clarified. there are some articles that can be interpreted in both ways. but the central government over who has control to exploit, develop an export oil. that is two fundamentally different views of oil development that have emerged,
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that in central government which says oral exploration can be managed. but that is alternately under the control as it has been under the central government. and the kurds pushing towards the decentralized view. the key issues -- how they can be managed, was the legal framework to be used, which contract model can be used? i cannot go into the specifics. but there's a difference between the technical sharing in the south, and the production sharing hoped for in the north. there is no illegality to this other than what the kurds hope to pay, because they have no money to pay. and what kind of legal framework -- there is still after five years and no national law in iran. there is nothing to assure payment modernization --
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[no audio] because of undefined political authority, the krg has taken advantage of the opportunities of the political vacuum, the security issues that have plagued baghdad since 2003. to take large areas of land under their control. part of it could be koo-- but my .ere not kurdish,
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these movements, the control of land, the behavior has been interpreted by other arab- iraqis. when you had in 2003, some kind of understanding, let us work with the kurds, over the years, there has almost been a backlash to the point where there is now a growth of anti-kurdish sentiment, even among sunni arabs that have turned with kurds against the central government, to now turned against the kurds. what does this mean? more unlikely of signing the law.
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so, there is still no agreement on the national hydrocarbons law. it is important to note that these contractsanother reason tp of up a reserve. it is about booking reserves. you will have these companies, and remembered the kurdistan region is not a state. it is a quite-stake. -- quasi state. there has been a history of contention with international oil companies. the kurdistan region is welcoming it as a form of
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leverage and eight meets in which they can export their will. the question remains, who will pay east contracts. . in 2011 it was $10.8 billion. with 95% of the kurdish budget dependent on baghdad, it was not a lot of extra revenue to bp oil companies. despite these high profit margins, at the end of the day, but he but had to come from
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baghdad. this is an issue and it has been five years and no one has been paid. the other day, there was an attempt for some kind of deal, and what you are likely to find a of the next several years is not the passage of a national hydrocarbon law, but these sporadic side deals which the two temporary payment until a larger deal can be made. other issue that has been emerging is is to ease the will or the gas for proof as the kurdistan region fix these alternatives because it is not being paid, are are nine other
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countries. and sunn-arabs -- it is the relation between what perception of iraqi sovereignty means. you had the issue of can the kurds now export put ju? now that this course is we have the right export. you do not even have a different interpretation of that, and there has been no contract signed, but there has been a lot of noise coming from the kurdistan region, that they will create an independent pipeline. there is the private investor
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yet willing to take the risk building directly related to turkey. i see them more likely scenario that these pipelines, people will make a deal to connect it to the existing iraqi pipeline, which has the capacity to build 1,600,000 barrels, but currently is doing less to turkey. i did not see any other investors engaging. i will get to the turkish role in this, but on the one hand, while it seems interesting and possible for turkey and krg to benefit, there are other things going on that are threatening turkey's national security.
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one i did problem, pkk is based in northern iraq, and with the serious crisis, they have taken a third event, which is syria. over the last couple of weeks you have had some of the worst uncertainty and southeast turkey with the pkk. this is a tenuous situation, and to talk about exporting oil with new pipelines in an area with great instability is an overstep. turkey must step back a bit. you are starting to hear people say we have to pull back. a power in the kurdistan region -- and powering -- empowering the kurdistan region is not in turkey's interest.
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kurds in turkey seeking there aren't -- i see turkey and a clever game of trying to leverage the krg. you are starting to see this pullback. the kurdish president cannot control the syrian-kurdish problem and he still needs to remain a problem with ankara. you have something including not only the pilot into syria, but some upset potential hopes for pipelines that kurds are claiming they will build. i cannot go into the details of debt issue -- details of the issue. i want to focus, turkey and
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iran. turkey has a role here it is like it's up between baghdad and -- erbil. it has the aim of becoming a regional energy hub. turkey does not have its own sufficient energy resources. it supports 60% -- in imports 60% of its natural gas from russia. turkey has large stakes, small private companies have stakes, where the state company has oil fields in the south. this is significant investment in this out but that smaller companies, such as the biggest investor in the north.
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where turkey has its greatest interest aside from what i find a highly unrealistic independent pipeline discourse is to repair the existing pipeline. the existing iraqi-turkish pipeline -- this was built in the late 1970's as an alternative pipeline in case the strait of hormuz were ever to be shot. it has been in disrepair and has never gotten up to the level it should have. nonetheless come it is an alternative, and i did not see the straits of hormuz been closed, but iraq more so than the other baltic states, 80% of iraqi will export go through the statraits of hormuz. turkey can play a positive role
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working to the northern corridor where iraqi and kurdish oil can be exported to european market. scenario. turkey is seeking -- iraqi gas. you will not see the iraqi gas coming out. there is no market. the deal has taken those supplies. what are the political publications that have emerged from the turned-energy up interests and this sectarian politics, this attention or the exacerbation of relations with baghdad as iraqi-kurdish
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relations have improved. you have it tried to play off the iraqi kurds. turkish relations to a focus. whether you want to call this heightened nationalism, resources nationalism, you are having a heightened sense from non-kurdish iraqis that there has been turkish overstepped as well, there has been a backlash, like the the impact on iran is different.
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at iran politically, but -- iraq as a prism as iran. iran looks at iraq in an oil- centric mentality. it has this been a capacity to suppress iranian exports. if iraq becomes successful, tensions could emerge. the worst-case scenario, tehran could retaliate by closing the straits of hormuz, and as the international sanctions weigh on the iranian regime, iran could spur energy prices by closing
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the straits of hormuz. that would be the reason why iraq or baghdad needs to work on developing this northern pipeline. iraq has this enormous potential, but i do not see the, but the ultimate bottleneck will be the political issues between the kurdistan region and baghdad. turkey is a key player, and that relationship should be tapped through baghdad. the development of the northern corridor is also an important alternative marked for baghdad to expand its opportunities. i will leave it at that. how thank you. [applause]
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>> it is hard to be the closer. it is a great honor to speak, said this means a lot to me. i thank my colleagues for their presentations. mine will be complementary. i am going to stay away from the political issues because you have heard i am sorry that while you are talking -- where is the laser pointer? there we go. that is ok.
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i have to go back because i like to his matt. i wish i had worked on more maps. that is another matter. one more. first of all, this is an old map, and as you will see in one of the maps that i have, a lot of these pipelines in iraq no longer function. i will walk you through what works, what does not, and what does that mean as iraq wants to get that 12 million barrels a day, and what it cannot. 80% of the exports go to the south. they are concerned when their neighbor iran threatens to close the straits because they have to
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look for alternative routes. their access to the pipeline has been closed since they invaded kuwait, and as denise mentioned, the pipeline going through turkey, some of them are not working. we have to go through all this. here first is iraqi will production since 1997, and you cannot see that down there, but this began in 1997 taking us to 2012. this is a year to date average. the only year that is missed is 2003 because of the invasion. that throws the average off. for the most part with the exception of 2012, iraqi oil production has remained consistent. in fact, one could say quite
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flat. that has led iraq to figure out what could they do. they are one of the first to nationalized their oil sector, that in 1960 they limited the hereign companies to just to kirkuk oil fields. they cheat their highest oil production in 1979. -- they achieved their highest oil production in 1979. this is a very promising step, and this has raised such excitement for them because it is why they clung to the 12 million barrel per date figure. you did hear that iraqi has the largest reserves of oil and gas. that was nicely covered.
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thank you. out of this production, almost half of it is from romella, just about 50% of their production, which is the one being run by the bp consortium. in iraq's eyes, if anything happens in the south, they have no money. if that crude oil cannot be exported, there is no a other alternative. pipelines running to the north do not work. they cannot go to the pipeline to saudi arabia. they have very limited options. i think we can now go to hear, which is why we should look at which pipelines work and which do not. down here but you can see is if the pipeline, the direct portion that would come down, that does
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not work. what you see here is most of the fields from the sow that are producing -- from the south that are producing tricks this is the strategic pipeline. it only works up to just north across karbala, and there is a feeder line that goes to a refinery in baghdad. this section does not work. the iraq-syria pike, this section does not work. the pipelines that the between spouses do not work. and the pipeline from the field off the border with iran going down to baghdad also does not work. what you have is a bifurcated system. you have the sow will company with limited access to either export everything through the two terminals.
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they could send crude oil to the refinery in basra or send some to the refinery in baghdad. these gems here are pump stations, and if you did not have the capacity, you can not send that much oil north. they are working on rehabilitating this line. they cannot send that much up to baghdad. everything must go through the persian gulf. for the north, and you will see nothing mentioned on iraqi kurdistan on this map, kirkuk field has been producing since 1927. it is their first field. into three zones. most production here is from th southernmoste middle done.
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the number dome is being operated by the kurds. just like the professor was saying with potential spill over from reservoirs. this field produces the majority oil companies' will compa oil. since the domes have been producing since 1927, it is harder to continue to produce oil. there have been times when people that the not agree but the federal government would sabotage the pop lines -- the pipelines. what that would do would they would still order to produce in kirkuk.
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they needed cooking fuel, propane. they would produce the oil, strip out the gas, and put that will with the gas out back into the ground, which then affects the permeability of the field. my science, i took geology, soak it helped me. -- so it helped me. i can act as the translator with the policy makers. i enjoyed that part. because the permeability is damaged, it is harder to extract oil from the field, because it is like you are drinking a can of soda. i use this analogy. that more you drink, the less liquid you have in the can, said the less suction unique. your damaging the field. the iraqis are doing that from
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2003 to 2007. it is unclear of the damage that has been done to this field. now that you have kurds producing from the northern zone, that is unclear how that interacts, because at some level the three reservoirs can act. what does that mean for care kirk? i do not know. there are other fields that her produce, but what you are getting is at most 500,000 barrels a day, of which 300,000 can go to the pipeline. this does not make turks happy. iraq has problems. they'd be to work on reconnecting these pipelines or trying to get a contractor to kirkuk. kerr ki the political risk is extremely high.
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i am so focused on the north, and since both of you did such a good job, i thought i would add my knowledge. we should focus on the south, because that is the crown jewel of iraq. what is iraq trying to do? they have 18 contracts. the first round was in 2009. at first they only had one company with a winning bid, bp. exxon and the italian firm and in the chinese firm issued bids later. they decided to come down and meet the iraqi price. even just that, the iraqis were happy because bp promised to raise production by 2017. as you could see, if they're only getting 3 million now, is producing now 1.3 million, you
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are adding 1,500,000 to what iraqis produce. iraq is a success from this alone. it does not matter what happens to everybody else. if iraq had to, if only one field works, they would be doing quite well. let's get to the export infrastructure. they have the basra terminal, and you have a much smaller and ward damaged export oil terminal, which only at most was exporting may be 100,000 barrels a day. not really a good alternative. the slack cannot be picked up for this. this is why they went to several
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foreign companies to help them with a single-point plan. right now they only have two. due to inadequate infrastructure onshore, those buoys cannot hit 900,000 barrels. you round numbers. what becomes here it is a game for who can get their oil out to these two terminals first. bp has a step up ahead of everyone because they had their contract first, time to work through the progress, and other challenges and decision making. they are looking at filling the pipeline. the others have to consider what will it take for them to get.
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the water issue for west -- there are two parts. those fields and others throughout the south are in need of water, and the water was for reinjection. if you are going to take the will out, something has to go in, and otherwise you have a huge plant problem. you need to put water in. you do not want to take water from the river. that is politically unfeasible. to the oil companies come why desalinization? iraqis continue to go ahead looking at the less of a big
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name contractor to do it, not to say that it is not a good company, but they looking for design-build companies to do that. that will take time. because they have not figured out that question, all these other fields that need water have to wait. so they cannot raise production above a certain level. i do not have that they get to tell you what each field could do, but iraq will be constrained, which is why you hear from both government and industry sources iraq will produce up to 6 million barrels by 2020. that becomes an issue for iraq perry they have this euphoria. the press was there the second saudi arabia.
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that goes back to political issues. this is not an opec discussion, but that can be for another time. in any case, what the iraqis have to do is what can they legitimately produced and figure out what do they need to do to get the oil out? how much money do they need to invest here? if they cannot do that, what is the problem? what can they do? they have to have a political solution with saudi arabia. iraq will have lots of tension. with iran, because iran's production is declining and their production is increasing. internal -- we heard about the dispute that is another form of political tension. in terms of oil, everything here is technical. you also have the basra
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provincial companies, this will bring in a lot of money, what will this do for us? that becomes a source of tension for the baghdad government. there has to be a lot of tough decisions, very clear planning, where will they go in the next five years? will becomes a political question, as you have both internal issues, you have the extra oil issues, and they have to work out and resolved but those. depending on how those goals can definitely change what iraq really to the world's total output. we have heard a lot about it. they are good at expressing themselves on how much they produce, but when you look at the total of exports, at their height a production, they were only 4% or less of iraq's total.
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that does not mean baghdad is going to -- this. it means baghdad and erbil deal. to do a anything goes wrong here, iraq has a huge financial problem. ok. i think the other issues i will cover, since a lot of it was already covered, i will say they have to question who will finance this. is it to the iraqi government, something sort of transfer process? how to protect that infrastructure? there were attacks along this line. what is to prevent attacks down here? they have to look at that. the other issue is going to beat
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once they reconnect this, how much of the southern production is going to go up north? it becomes a marketing issue. if you want to sell more to asia, have to have more export viability down here. do you go to jordan? that is the other option if you cannot go through saudia arabia. the last issue i would say is investment in kirkuk. eventually iraq will have to find a way how to get someone to reverse the decline of kirkuk. if you cannot, you will see this decline, and in kurdistan region will be the sole provider of oil into the iraq-turkey pipeline if these pipelines are not fixed. then we can go to the question and answer period.
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>> thank you very much. i realize we are running a bit late. normally i would have taken my 20 questions, will not because i think i much prefer that you have an opportunity to post your questions to the panel. i think we will take 83 before we have an answer, and what i would ask is that josh has the microphones that you, when i called you, wait a to post your question until he gets there. questions? we will start up here in the front. could you identify yourself? >> hi.
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thank you so much for coming. i am at the eliot school. my question pertains to something which both professors discussed regarding kurdistan. professor, you mentioned the relationship between turkey and how they are trying to balance itself between kurdistan and baghdad, and that is an interesting thing that is being done. my question pertains to how the saudis and iranians are perceiving the region of kurdistan, the political balance, and the balance between kurdistan and baghdad and how kurdistan is trying to question the complete sovereignty of iraq, and so that is what my question pertains to. thank you. >> other questions? >> i am also from the eliot
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school. my question is, it seems like the tension between krg and baghdad were getting worse, and do you think that is the case? also, the recent agreement to pay part of the money for baghdad to pay money to the krg? and there was an armed group where maliki's supporters were going in the krg and they said they were not going to do that? maybe it is not a big deal. do you think that the payments are a sign at tensions lessening, or it is not a big deal and not important? >> thank you.
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another question? >> this is a question for matt. what are we talking about in terms of the amounts of money and time to repair those pipelines? in the case of the one that goes to saudi, what would it take for -- to get the saudis to agree to reopen it? is that a pipeline that actually would work fine if the saudis would only agree to turn it back on? thanks. >> good question. that was one of my 20. on this whole question of turkey kurk region, it strikes me as counter enter the best counter intuitive that the turks look at this to the eye of whether or not they are right to
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be independent. wherever they go down through a word which they will allow that kurds to get something like her kkirkuk. denise, you talked about the amount of money that they give. [indiscernbile] >> the relationship between -- [indiscernbile] it is very different. the relationship between iran and the iraqi kurds is a longstanding one, not only because there is a shared border, iran has its own kurdish population to worry about, but because 250,000 kurds lived in iran after the revolution, and
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none the less, iran has its own very important kurdish problem. liked the krg has done with turkey, kurdistan has done the same with baghdad. they will move out there running and kurdish nationalists. this has been going on there for 20 years. they need those borders open. there is trade. tomorrow, you will have mentioned on barzani in a visit to iran, because what is happening kurds are aware of what turkey is up to an but tensions are emerging. they are asking themselves, do we stay neutral? the relish of between barzani and turkey is and has a different connotation is
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enhancing this fragmentation. you're seeing this playing out in the kurdistan region. iran will not support an independent kurdistan. >> on the saudi side, i think traditionally saudis were totally opposed to any kurdish independence. i think this is changing. the whole war by proxy which was what i mentioned earlier means that the saudis would be perhaps likely to encourage more independence the kurdish territories. to weaken iraq and we can in around. we were talking about
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opportunism, and the kurds could be part of that. in that sense, that could be -- there might be a switch in the saudi attitude. on the pipeline, the pipeline will never open to saudi arabia. the saudis already transformed the pipeline. it was built between a field down to saudi arabia and took a westward route directly to -- most of the portion that is going west is being used by the saudis. that pipeline -- there is no capacity. they have nationalized it. not in those terms, of course. >> wanted to answer this question about the conflict, if the conflict is getting worse.
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i look at what goes on in the media in washington because it is amusing. it is amazing what can come out and what is being produced and what is happening on the ground. the relationship between kurdistan and baghdad did not start when people started focusing the region in 2003. it the last 80 years, the relationship between kurds and baghdad has not been entirely in contract. it has fluctuated between conflict and negotiations. what we're seeing now is nothing different than what happened over the last 80 years, which is periods of negotiations where .he central government is weak you have seen this time since 2003 of brinksmanship, when the
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american military was going to pull out, everybody was screaming there was going to be a civil war in kirkuk. now they are saying there is want to be another civil war. that did not happen either. i do not seek an all-out armed conflict. but all the millions of dollars they have spent on lobbying, they cannot have conflict, and they will not fight over kirkuk. what i see is a continuation of the status quo, because of .enefits s recent agreement, and the media is wonderful, coming out of website, this is nothing different than the agreement that was not that much different last year, which was another side deal, that to prevent all-
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out conflict, it shows there is a willingness to move away from brinksmanship, to have some kind of side deal. there is no disagreement to the contracts. it is a means to settle some current debt. you look at which companies are involved. no companies after 2007 will be paid. important key players were not there. it has to be approved by parliament. the krg has to submit its papers for auditing and be transparent. this will be the biggest challenge, that you have to show what their contracts are about. i do not see the big key political issues that i discussed before, they have not been put out on the table. >> i have the easy question.
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you answered half of it. i will follow up on that. basically, on the pipeline, by saying what i said, it was a potential route the iraqis still mentioned. yes, the saudis have filled it to capacity. he basically, if iraq is focused on its asian markets, it will only have two options to the through, which will be through saudi or ibm or through the north. that is another option, but that increases the transportation costs and all these other things. it is a potential. in terms of money and time to fix the strategic pipeline, the iraqis have had a couple studies being done.
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i know it will take several billion dollars and a few years to do. in iraq it may take longer. there are no quick fixes to reunite the oil infrastructure between the north and the south. >> a couple more questions. do i see hands? >> the question is for matt. what price does iraq need for their domestic programs, production volume, and the rest of you talked about them not hitting their targets, what does that mean for domestic policies? >> one more question and we will let the panel respond. >> i am a retired foreign
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service officer with a few years in the gulf. you mentioned using desalinated water to provide the water pressure for the oil fields. this is an expensive way to do it and it requires some form of power, presumably natural gas, which iraq is still developing. how can they do this? >> i will add the third question. one of the things that we hear discussed quite a lot about gulf production is the increase in calls state consumption. could you comment, as we look ahead, at the industrialization in the region and the demand domestically for their own oil production. what does this mean for the
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ability of these countries to supply the global market? >> sure, i was thinking how i was going to respond to both questions. if iraq is not able to hit its targets, it is not necessarily a bad thing. as i said, with certain production alone, their oil production would be well over 4 million today. what this does mean is renegotiation. renegotiation could be good or bad for but the companies or the iraqis, because, as was stated, the terms are tight for the companies, they can still earn money, but not as much as in other places. there has to be a frank discussion. yes, the production figures are
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going to have to come down, and i do not think iraqis will have a problem with that. there is all this issue of opec, which is not the issue of this. that will also have an impact, but more of a political issue. what price does iraq need? " price is right now are very good for iraq. they issued for the 2013 budget, the average that iraqi dollars a get 90 barrel. it is a large chunk of change. the question becomes how much can they tend to vote will infrastructure, and that becomes a very tough question, because there are so many needs in iraq.
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that makes the iraqis have to look at but are our financing options. this becomes a tough question, and it is not one i can easily answer, but the iraqi government must put all items on the table to look at where can we go, how can we give, where does that give us, and if we need money, where can we get it? they will not be able to devote all budgetary resources to oil. in terms of getting the salt water to the oil fields, yes, it would be expensive. there were news reports stating that it would be in several billion dollars. i thought it was under 10. yes, that means they need to do something about electric power. that is why the shell gas deal that was approved really has to begin to take shape.
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again, these are issues -- how quickly will this be done? how will shell gas and the consortium get the gas, process to guess, deliver the guess? these are difficult questions, and it takes a lot of coordination. will be very slow-going. once again, it shows why government and industry analysts only predict the 4 million-to-6 million barrel a day production range. it will take more time and money. >> i just want to make one point about the production levels -- what happens if they do not meet the chart. just to touch upon the north, there is not going to be much
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profit for the last several years because the region is in its mergers and acquisition phase. they want to get out the small companies, and bring in the majors. the smaller companies can no longer sustain, or you will need to bring in larger partners. this could gone for many years because you get more sign-on bonuses for the company's you bring in. the time will come where payments have to be made for these companies and that is where not meeting the production level will hurt the government. i will still say it is not an immediate issue. >> ok. perhaps to go directly to your question, i think there has been a lot of talks, in particular in
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saudi arabia, where they are increasingly using crude oil to make electricity, and the demand has been increasing by 8% per year for an eye to city. -- for electricity. there were reports that by 2015 they would be using 40% of their crude oil for producing electricity. i think that was a good misleading in the article. it was 40% for their own use, and it was not just for electricity. that would take 4 million barrels a day of consumption worldwide. the reality is they are already using 2 million barrels a day as we speak. it is still a big chunk of oil. saudi arabia, if you ask them
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the question, they will say we have dry fields that we have put on line, so the dependence on crude oil should decline, but it is still very important. the biggest project than half now in the industrial zone for phosphates and aluminum is going to run an electricity plant based on crude. they are hoping to replace that with ags and the solution -- gas they will tell you the solution is a nuclear plants. they hope to build 20 nuclear plants, and that will take 20 years. the united arab emirates has already ordered four plants. and pretty that improves their
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source for electricity and decreases -- that improves their source for electricity. it is a big problem. in a way, they are not happy that iraq is -- completely unhappy with iraq because there is less pressure on them to produce crude oil. seen in iraq produce more is not bad. the jordanian pipeline is an interesting twist, because i do not know what the saudi policy is on that, but considering what they have done with the gas pipeline in kuwait, my guess is they will tell the jordanians that it is not a good idea, so they can control iraqi production. that is just a guess.
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>> i want to say thank you all very, very much. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> come and up, the federalist society posted discussion on the upcoming supreme court term. the focus includes affirmative action and universities, human- rights abuses overseas, national security and privacy issues. the discussion will be live in just under an hour at the top of a cut 30 eastern today here on c-span -- , clocked 30 eastern today here on c-span. >> i watch c-span any time there is something going on. i want to watch c-span because they typically have the best, most unbiased view. if i want to get spun in a circle, i will watch and other news organization. i love c-span.
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i will watch them on tv or on line. i do not know that i have a favorite show. for me, anytime i need to know what is going on, i know c-span will have the real story. >> josh truitt is c-span on direct tv. c-span, created by america's public cable companies, brought to you as a service. two rising stars in texas politics debate the economy, immigration and other issues. julian castro is the democratic mayor of san antonio and was the keynote speaker at the democratic national convention, and ted cruz is the u.s. candidate for senate -- senate.
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>> i think you know the drill today. i hope you will enjoy as many of those as you can. if you have phones and you're not going to tweet or instagram, we ask you to turn off your phones. please give our sponsors a hand. [applause] we will visit for about 40 minutes. when we get started, there are phones on either i'll. we ask that of that the microphone at the appropriate -- we ask that you line up at the microphone at the program time than july 31, 2012 began with the announcement that julian caster would be the
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keynote speaker at the democratic national convention. following in the footsteps of several. before mayor castro had uttered the words menudo " gulf, speculation began. -- menudo cookoff, speculation began. july 31 was a port from which the future of texas and possibly the nation was visible. mayor castro and mr. cruz are young and intelligent lawyers who can give a punch and take a
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punch and give a stunning view of the world with all of its opportunities and all of its challenges. there also is vanity and a state that is in the epicenter of the demographic change recrimination. mayor captured just turned 38 pin he is a graduate of stanford university and harvard law school. he is a national co-chair of the obama-biden reelection campaign. mr. cruz is 41. he is a graduate of princeton
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university and harvard law previous work with chief justice william rehnquist, advised the bush-cheney campaign in 2000, work with the federal trade commission and the department of justice before serving as the nation's youngest solicitor general. but to have them both here today. [applause] the gentleman, thank you so much for being here. you both had quite a summer. mayor castor, let me ask you to reflect on this summer. -- mayor castro, let me ask you to reflect on this summer. >> first, a greenwich solutions for of and for a wonderful event. -- first, congratulation for evident for a wonderful event -- for evan for a wonderful event.
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it was like throwing a claustrophobic into a closet and then taking away the key. [laughter] i think what we have seen in historical cycle of some of what we saw in 2010 -- in this 2012 cycle is in some of what we saw in 2010. people are aspirational, hopeful, but also frustrated. people are still committed to the fundamental ideals that make the nine states special, that make it a land of opportunity, that make it a believe the greatest country in the world. in the same time gun they are nervous. -- at the same time, they are nervous.
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that has been clear this whole campaign season. it has been an exciting summer appeared i also learned that my daughter knows have to flip her hair. [laughter] >> she does. most famous child in america. the nation also learn you have a twin brother. they said that the democrats love julien castro so much, they have an extra one. [laughter] mr. cruz, where did you learn about yourself and what did you learn about the state of politics in this country? >> at the convention, i was just glad that i did not fall off stage. when i came out, the plan had been there would be a two- minute video. as happens at these conventions, they were running a bit late.
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they said okay, we will cancel the video. you had right on down and instead of just a clean stage, you had a podium and the teleprompter going down and there was literally a 15-foot tent going down behind me. wasclearest thought i'll hoping that i do not do a back flip. >> were you surprised at the convention about anything you her saw? you have been pretty clear about your own views. but what did you hear? >> i thought the convention was fantastic. but the there was an energy on the ground. in terms of what i have learned and experienced in the last year-and-a-half, it truly has been -- the biggest thing in terms of our primary is that it was really a testament to the grassroots. in any other cycle, what
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happened in the republican primary could not have happened. in any ordinary year, the should have been a very easy lay down. we were out-spent three-one. when we started, i was a 2%. >> the primaries back in march. you may not be sitting here. >> thank god for small miracles. >> you published an opinion piece in "the wall street *" this week where you say that america is that a crisis point. can you explain that to? >> i think we are at a fiscal and economic cliff. i think we have pursued government spending programs that have created a debt that is out of control. at the convention come after talking, i went home to my hotel at 1:30 a.m. and i was looking on my iphone at twitter. and the comedian paula pound stone had sent a tweet that
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evening. i don't know her, but she said " ted cruz just said that, when his daughter was born, the debt was $5 trillion and now it is $16 trillion. what the heck did she do?" [laughter] >> you think the debt is putting the nation in crisis. >> along with government spending, is causing the dead. we have seen a growing expansion in the power of the federal government. it is crippling small businesses. >> you are the national co-chair of the obama-bided campaign. >> i would put the challenge that we have as a nation in a different context. and say that, to the extent that we are a nation in "crisis,"
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although i would not describe it as that because i believe that we can fundamentally overcome this and that we can do it in a fairly rational and reasonable way, i think the challenges that we have now had more than a generation of folks who are not willing to ask americans to sacrifice and to be realistic about how we take on our biggest challenges. for instance, everyone remembers the republican debate where they asked whether you would take the bargain of one dollar's worth of tax increases or $10 worth of basically tax cuts and everybody raised their hands and said they would not accept that. we have become a country where -- it is not just one side, both sides, but more one side now than ever is not willing to be realistic about how we can
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tackle these challenges. if there is a crisis that i see in the united states for the long term, it is not the temporal issue of how we will deal with money. because i am very confident we will be able to deal with that. it is how will we bring that -- bring back our sense of what we can accomplish together as americans when we are realistic about those challenges. that is the thing i think about with the word "crisis" in this country. >> mayor castro is not the first to suggest that. for 10 years now, we heard that the government is not asking all of us to do enough. >> it is interesting. the word "sacrifice," when i hear a politician say that, it
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usually means grab your wallet. it usually means increasing taxes. and i will give president obama credit to in his the first presidential candidate since walter mondale to run explicitly on a platform that he will raise taxes. >> he is saying he will raise taxes on the wealthy. >> according to the supreme court, he already has raised taxes. that was the basis on which the supreme court of held obamacare, that it was a tax increase. >> to mayor castro's point, people who have more are being asked to sacrifice. you do not agree with that. >> i do not agree with that. but me say two things.
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if you look historically, such spending has been 20% of gdp. federal spending has been 18% of gdp. i think the problem is we're spending too much. in the last three years, federal spending has gone from 20% of gdp to 25% of gdp. that is a fundamental structural shift and it is produced -- it has produced record-setting deficits and putting us in a path of greece and where much of europe are. the economy is teetering on the edge of recession. the were seen can do is jacked up taxes on small businesses and entrepreneurs or job creators. that makes it all the more likely to push us into a recession. and for the 23 million people who struggling for work, the worst thing to do is hurt the small businesses that create those jobs.
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>> it is fair to say that the president has reduced taxes. he has reduced taxes for small businesses 18 times. he cut taxes for '95 -- for 95% of families out there. the question is do we ask everybody to sacrifice? when you look at the marginal rate in the united states, when ronald reagan took office, the marginal office with 71% to 72%. it is interesting to me that the greatness that people speak of in terms of the united states, when we talk about the 1940's, the 1950's, the 1960's, 1970's, the marginal rate that folks paid was much greater. nobody says we will go back to that. at the same time, during the clinton years, we had marginal rates that were a little bit higher than they are now and we had some of the best economic times that the country has ever seen. that is what i'm talking about. my concern for the country is that all of this heat has been
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generated around this issue instead of light and analysis and a sober look at the role that every american play, should play in strengthening our country. that is the concern i have in the long run. >> i want to pick up mr. cruz's suggestion that the economy is in trouble from -- is in trouble. texas has endured. but san antonio has had a tough couple of years. the census bureau report brought these numbers appeared between 2009 and 2011, unemployment in san antonio went up by more than a full point. needed household income has gone down. you know how tough the economy is. you're leaving a city that has been bearing some of the brunt. can you talk about that? few dispute that the economy is in a world of hurt?
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whoever's responsibility that is. >> i think every american would say that the economy is not where we wanted to be. but if you look nationally, there is no question that we have had 30 months of private- sector job growth. 4.6 million new jobs that were created during that time. at the same time, if we were to go right now to the archives of the university and pull out the front page headlines from four years ago and look at what was happening at this 0.4 years ago, where we were losing hundreds of thousands of jobs. in the month when president obama took office, we lost almost 800,000 jobs that month. there was talk of another depression at that time. whether we are talking about taxes or san antonio or anyplace, are we were we want to be? no. but are we better off than where we were? when we're talking about going into another depression and the
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banks collapsing and so on and so on? absolutely. there is no question in my mind. >> this question has become a part of his campaign. mayor castro makes the case that there have been 30 consecutive months of job growth. and when the president came into office, things were significantly worse now. would you like to take issue with this? >> right now, tragically, work- force participation is at the lowest rate it has been in 30 years. you mentioned john stuart been normally, you can get a barometer of where the country is by the late-night comics. >> i thought you said comics. [laughter] >> i will let even get into the midst of that. >> but letterman is getting older and we will have a vacant chair at some point.
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[laughter] >> so what did jay leno say. >> they went from 8.3% to 8.1% and the reason was that three and 60,000 people dropped out of the work force entirely, stop looking for work, which is the only reason the numbers went down. nearly 400,000 people give up hope they could find work. so obama has a strategy for re- election which is encouraging even more people to stop looking for what. >> but the question is not whether the and employment rate is 8.1% or 8.3%. the question is whether it is better than when the president took office? >> absolutely not. when you have the worst employment participation in 30 years -- in the three and a half years of president obama tenure, gdp growth has been 1.5%.
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historically, for the last seven years, it has been 3.7%. we have had less than half the historical average pared by contrast, in 1984, gdp growth was 7.2% print what does that mean when the economy is growing, when small businesses are prospering? they are creating new jobs and people are able to find work. it creates opportunity for everyone. what we have unfortunately is small business after small business facing crushing uncertainty. the single biggest question you hear from business leaders is they don't know between obamacare and dodd-frank and the offshore drilling moratorium in texas. but entrepreneurs expressed to me is the sense of great uncertainty. what will the federal regulators
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do? and the president keep promising to raise everyone's taxes, which is causing small businesses to keep capital on the sidelines and not deploy it because they have so much uncertainty. >> i am not certain that the president is going to raise their once taxes. but you know what the growth rate was -- do a deal with the gdp growth rate was at the end of bush? >> no. [laughter] >> the 4.6 million new private- sector jobs created with this president is more than were created under george bush. you have a president who basically inherited one of the worst economies that this country has ever seen. of course, what will you do with a falling object? that object will fall and you have to pick up and the rise back up will be a little bit slower.
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what you have seen is that coming in the 30 months, 4.6 million new jobs, he has already created more jobs centers w. bush. this is a president who understands how to get the economy going and this election should be, between these two candidates, who actually has a plan about the future? given his record, i have more confidence that president obama can get that done than governor romney appeared >> -- then governor romney. >> right now, you're trying to get a sales tax increase to pay for pre-k. can you defend, sitting next to someone who does not like texas famously, the decision to brought to market with a tax increase even for something you so strongly believe in? many mayors are with you, but
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there are a lot of elected officials and san antonio who are not with you. >> basically, i fundamentally believe that brainpower is the currency of success. in the 21st century global economy. those communities that created will be the communities that thrive in our market economy. and those communities that do not will be the ones who fall behind. san antonio, i believe, needs to make a huge investment in education. that investment is not limited to more money. it also means getting parents involved. it also means expecting more from everybody along whole education ecosystem, from administrators to policy-makers to teachers come expecting more out of everyone. so what i have on the table in san antonio is basically a 1/8 cent sales tax that will cost
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the median household in the city $7.81 per year. mind you, every day in texas, it cost $359.81 to keep a juvenile incarceration. what we have on the table is the opportunity to educate more than 22,404-year-olds with -- 22,400 4-year-olds with high quality pre-k. >> i don't believe that taxes are inherently evil. >> that will be tweeted, by the way. [laughter] give them a second. [laughter] >> i do believe that taxes are inherently evil. i'd like them and nobody likes the impaired but it will the voters in san antonio that there is no way to sugarcoat this.
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i am asking you for this tax increase. more than that, i believe in you. i believe that may put it in front of you, you can make a decision as to whether or not you want to make this investment. so are you willing to pay $7.81 if we meet you halfway by ensuring accountability, ensuring that we require parents to be involved in their child's education because they're probably the most important shepherds of what happens in a child's life. we require performance audits and we set this with a definitive time from the eight years. in eight years, you get to vote on this again. you can either keep it or leave it based on how it has performed. and we set actual schools that make it transparent. what we will have to decide in texas, especially on the issue of education, because brainpower is so important to economic success in the future, is are we willing to make the investment?
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and if we do, i also believe that we have the right to expect more from everybody in the education ecosystem, from parents to policy makers to a administrators, everybody down . -- down the line. >> mr. cruz, sounds like he is telling the community, you can control it. if you want money for pre-k, you can vote to support or reject. do you have an issue with that? >> i agree with you. i commend mayor caster for taking leadership on an issue that he is passionate about pair and for taking it to the voters of san antonio. i think that is where the important issues of education should be decided come at the state level and the local level. >> you would vote no, however. >> if i were a citizen of san antonio, i would look at the merits of the argument there is a world for taxes and things
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that government can provide. that is a choice for the citizens of san antonio to make. on the merits, is it the thing that makes sense for them to make. if it works, you can look at the results and other communities can make the decisions. one of the reasons i do like federal decisions that are forced from washington all across the country is that different communities have different needs. and what might be a good policy in san antonio may be a terrible policy in laredo or new york city. >> the mayor says that he does not believe taxes are inherently evil but with qualifications. you? >> evil is a strong word. >> it is. and that is what i am asking you. [laughter] do you think taxes are inherently evil or do you? >> i think taxes are morally neutral. what is done with it can be good or bad. >> let me move on to health care. [laughter]
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i tried. this week, the census bureau that i alluded to earlier, they also talked about the state of health care in this country can it said that texas now has 5.8 million uninsured citizens, down as a percentage of our overall population. now 23% of our overall population is uninsured. we have the most in the country. along with that, i report by stephen murdoch can michael klein said that, if only we would embrace the federal health care reform, we could insure 3 million texans by 2014. in a state with the most citizens uninsured in the country, why would we not try something that at least some people believe would ensure more than 3 million of our fellow citizens? >> right now, the nation is struggling with obamacare and what will happen if it is fully implemented. i think that is one of the central issues at stake in
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november. it is one of the central issues at stake in the presidential race and in the congressional and senate race progressed the fact is that you would vote to repeal. >> i am an answer to the -- i am an enthusiastic vote to repeal. if you look at what is happening with obamacare already, you see small businesses, employers drop health insurance -- talking about dropping health insurance if obama's is care is implemented. if it is fully implemented, i believe, it will lead toward shifting more and more the citizenry to government-provided insurance, to providing -- to moving us toward a single-payer system. he did not go all the way to a single-payer system immediately. i think that is zero -- i think that is what obamacare is headed toward defeat is fully implemented.
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every nation on earth that has implemented social health care, government-run health care, you have seen poor quality. you have seen rationing. you have seen waiting lines provide don't think that is what americans want. and i also think that obamacare was implemented with a government arrogance that was extraordinary. there has been no major social legislation passed in modern times, other than obamacare, that was on a pure party-line vote ran down the throat both of the opposition and of the american people. >> you will double down on the idea that the affordable care act, which has been found constitutional, is socialized medicine. >> i think it is designed to lead as inexorably toward socialized medicine. >> i guess that you have a different point of view. >> i do. let's take a look at what the
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facts are. it has been fascinating to hear the discussion about obamacare over the last couple of years. every time you hear it, it is anecdote after anecdote, year after fear about what will happen, but what people are talking, snippets of conversation here and there. you started with a very good fact, which is that the percentage of folks who actually have health care, not just in texas, but in the united states of the last year has gone up for the first time in a very long time. the reason it has gone up is because now folks who are up to 26 years old can stay on their parents' plan. pre-existing conditions are not some paperwork excuse for an insurance company to deny you benefits that you have earned and paid for. and so the only thing that we have out of obamacare are a positive so far been everything
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else, well, small-business owners, they are worried about it or is there a chilling effect that is happening because of it? there's no empirical evidence for that. it is all about some future that is out there that is painted very darkly. although, i will say that we do have a model to look at and it is massachusetts. it is romneycare. >> i wouldn't vote for that either. but but what we saw in massachusetts was that folks like it and it has worked well and it would be a great thing if the governor would embrace what he accomplished. i would agree with him that it was a good way for massachusetts to go. and in 2015, 2016, 2017, if mr. cruz is elected this year, if he is up for reelection in 2018, i bet that folks will be singing a different tune about obamacare. >> to the specific point that the mayor made about pre-
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existing conditions and allowing young people to remain for a certain time on their parents' health insurance and even governor romney, whom you support for president has said that he would keep some of those things in any health care plan that he would put forward if he were elected president. are you ok with preexisting conditions? are you ok with keeping people on their parents' health care insurance to 26? are there things that you would permit or would repeal the whole thing? >> no. >> so you are against people being able to get insurance despite pre-existing conditions? >> let me be clear. candidates and politicians like to come with goodies print they say we will give you something and it will be great. but they never focused on the cost. my view of how to approach health care reform -- this is a complicated issue that does not admit to a simple band a solution. it is fundamentally different
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from the approach of president obama. i think health care reform should expand markets, expand competition and empower consumers and patients and disempower government bureaucrats from second- guessing the decisions that are made between a patient and a doctor. what does that mean specifically? the three reforms a think would be most important would be, number one, allowing people to purchase health insurance across state lines. why is that? because that would create a true 50-state national market for low-cost catastrophic health care. part of the problem, every time politicians say that every health plan must include the following bills and whistles and they give away all the stuff, it has the inevitable effect of driving the cost of health insurance for everybody. and one of the biggest reasons so many people in texas and nationally don't have health insurance is because it is so expensive. if we had a 250-state national
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market with low-cost catastrophic care, that would expand access. chris so buying across state lines would be number one. what are two and three? >> #2 is sitting in a tax- deferred way to take care of their health needs. i think that has significant impact, both in terms of manpower and consumers and in terms of constraining costs. >> so that is no. 2. >> #3, working to delink health insurance from employment p.m. it is a historical accident that most of us to get -- from employment. it is a historical accident that most of us get our health insurance from our employment. we don't live in the 1940's and 1950's were people go to work for one company for 50 years. if you or i lose our jobs, we don't lose our life insurance, home insurance, car insurance. >> so portability is a concern. >> and insurance is personal and you own it and it travels
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with you regardless of your job. that goes a long way to solving the problem of pre-existing conditions. you're not losing your health care. >> i want the mayor to respond but i ask you two specific questions and i want you to answer them pierre do you support allowing people to buy insurance despite preexisting conditions? do you support the principle of allowing young people to stay on their parents' health insurance until age 26? >> the center those one at a time. let's start with age -- let's answer those one at a time. let's start with age 26. that will increase the cost of insurance coverage for everyone. >> which you do not want to see happen been so i take that as a no. >> it is a no as a government mandate. but if you allow people to buy insurance across state lines, some policies will be available that to come if you want to buy this policy and cover your kids up to age 26, you can do so in pay higher premiums.
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i don't to jack up everyone's premiums because these things are not free. >> men they know or the possibility of that happening are definitely -- happening organically, definitely. >> yes. >> what about preexisting conditions? >> insurance companies should not dump you when you get sick. but if you have demanded that you must be covered regardless of pre-existing conditions, that is not insurance. >> if i go to get insurance and the company wants to deny me, your point of view is they should be able to peer >> yes. and ed will give you a reason why. let's imagine -- yes. and let me give you a reason why appeared let's imagine you have home insurance. wait until you're home burns down and then go by fire insurance. you cannot have a requirement that everyone must be covered regardless of preexisting conditions unless you have an individual mandate that forces everyone against their will to
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purchase insurance. i disagree with the individual mandate and most texans disagree with a individual mandate and those are intertwined. you cannot have the goodies without the cost. >> i have a different view of it. i have a different perspective on it. in fact, the underlying perspective seems to be that everybody will go their own way. when everybody goes their own way, things will work out. especially with something like health care, we need to be more intentional than that. but just to take an example, one of the things that you mentioned is this idea of folks getting low-cost catastrophic insurance, right? so that everybody gets that, a catastrophic coverage -- you have a huge help the event in your life that will be very expensive and you are able to get interest so it will be quite as and -- quite as expensive. but if you look at the reality,
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for instance, in the hispanic community, in our community, how many folks have diabetes or hypertension, every year it is getting worse. we have so many folks who live truly are using the emergency room as their primary care physician. they have the catastrophe. they end up in the emergency room because they go into diabetic shock or they have to get an amputation. my grandmother eventually did. i don't want forced to wait as a state or nation to work with folks until they have that catastrophe. health-wise. when an insurance company says they have a pre-existing condition, i want them to be able to get health care. more than that, we can make it economically workable, as the president has, so they can get that health care.
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just on that point, we don't want to wait until someone has a health catastrophe to say, now, instead of $25,000, it will be $5,000. no. we want to help ensure so folks can get good health care coverage throughout their lives so they don't end up in the emergency room and that health catastrophe, so they can actually be preventative, not just experienced the catastrophe. that is what we ought to aim for is a nation, not the other. >> i have five minutes before i open it up to the audience for questions. you said you don't question whether that is legitimate. but we have two gentlemen up here who are both hispanics. i want to ask you both as individuals and members of the hispanic community in texas. what do you think about immigration that has been kicked down the road. we are finally beginning to
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talk about it in earnest. can you talk about where you think this country ought to go on this subject? >> immigration is an issue that i think, sadly, neither party is serious about. uc both political parties demagogue the issue of immigration, using it to scare people. i think the underlying policy is quite simple. most texans, most americans agree that, number one, we need to get serious about securing our borders. we need to stop talking about it and actually solve the national security and law enforcement challenge of a border that is not secure. and number two, we need to remain in nation that not just welcomes, but celebrates legal immigrants. americans by choice is what ronald reagan described.
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our great strength as a nation is that all of us, our ancestors, came from all of real-world seeking freedom and opportunity and we need to remain a nation that celebrates immigrants and secure our border and gets serious about stopping the problem. >> yet that same president coming in 1986 and instituted a program that was effectively, if not literally, amnesty, which has been criticized by members of your party for opening the floodgates. >> i don't think amnesty is the right approach could i don't think that most texans or most americans support it. i think amnesty is unfair to the millions of legal immigrants to wait years and sometimes the kids in line to come here legally. to reward those who broke the law is fundamentally wrong. >> we know the president put into effect prosecutorial
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discretion, and wait to address the question of children who are undocumented persons in this country. we do not have comprehensive immigration reform in this country. where should we go? >> my hope is that, after this election, the environment in d.c. will be more supportive of a comprehensive immigration reform. of course, we have different views on the subject. i agree with the president's decision to exercise prosecutorial discretion. i also agree what he did for the dreamers. i hope we are able to pass the dream at. >> you are opposed? >> yes. >> but when you look at what is going on out there, the president is getting knocked on both sides. some are knocking him because
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they say that he deported more folks -- this administration, they say, has deported more focused than any other. >> well, the bush administration. >> we know that, since 2004, the number of border patrol agents have doubled in this country and that, president obama, he called for an increase to avert 21,000 border patrol agents. since 2007, revenue going toward border security has increased 55%. and we also see, for instance, in terms of mexicans coming to the united states, that is at net zero right now. to suggest that somehow our borders are not secure, if what that means is are they as secure as we would want them to be? we could always make them more secure, right? we could theoretically have zero people ever coming across the border.
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but the borders are more secure than they ever have been before. >> i guess we could ask if the borders are more secure than they were four years ago. [laughter] issue then there's this of the tone of the debate. i think the fear mongering in the debate. for instance, this issue of folks who are otm, other than mexicans, and know that you and lieutenant governor dewhurst talked about this in the debate. it was mentioned that there were many folks from middle eastern countries who are among the otm's who come to the united states. do you know how many middle eastern country otm's there were? >> i don't know. >> it is less than 0.002% of the boats that came across.
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it is so low that they could probably fit in this room. now, surely be -- we might suggest that one person is one too many, right? which i agree with. at the same time, this is why i said at the beginning of our conversation that there's a larger point here. if we are in some sort of crisis as a nation, the crisis is not any temporal or fiscal issue that we're facing or one policy issue. it is how we address these issues in a reasonable way on both sides. i do agree with you that, on both sides, people have used this issue and others like a pinata politics. they beat it around, turn these issues into cartoons. but on this issue of what it means for our country to have
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immigrants coming to get immigrants who have been the building blocks of our nation, i really believe we need to take a sober look at it could hope we can get comprehensive immigration reform passed. i believe that the dreamers were morally blameless and ought to be allowed to stay here and pursue their dreams of going to college or serving the military were working or whatever. i don't think that coming in the long run, the united states will be well served by being a nation that sends the signal to the world that come even though we are saying we like legal immigrants, we are comfortable with where we are at. the needs of our workforce don't support that. i think the future of our country is stronger if we go in another direction. so my hope is that we can get comprehensive immigration reform passed. >> is there a question?
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we will have you lining up. do that now while mr. cruz speaks. >> let me make a point on what the president did in terms of acting unilaterally. i think it should troublemaker castro and it should trouble democrats. a year ago, president obama said he had no constitutional authority to effectively grant amnesty to 800,000 people who are here illegally. and then, as we got closer to an election year, as we get closer to november, magically, he asserted that constitutional authority. >> shocked to discover the politics show up in an election- year. >> indeed, shocked. i am concerned by unchecked power in the hands of the executive, with that executive is a democrat or republican. -- whether that executive is a democrat or republican.
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if president obama is right that he has the power to say, it does not matter what our federal immigration laws are, i will ignore those laws. and it is not simply prosecutorial discretion. when you register, you are effectively here illegally. if the president can do that, i would be curious what mayor castro would think of a republican president who would begin erasing losses from the books. >> i thought we went through that a couple of years back. [laughter] [applause] >> let's actually talk about that. let's talk about a very specific instance. >> the biggest case in a year as solicitor general is a tragic crime in houston. two teenage girls were horribly murdered. the judicial arm of united nations issued an order to
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reopen the conviction of 51 murders. and the president, george w. bush, signed an order that attempted to order the state courts to obey the world courts. as solicitor general working for greg debora, on behalf of the state of texas, went before the supreme court and said that the president does not have the authority to unilaterally ignore the law. in fact, i use this exact same example. george w. bush is a republican, texas, i work for him and i admire him in many respects, but i fear unchecked executive authority. >> regardless of party. >> the supreme court struck it down. i have not heard a single voice in the democratic party of raising the question of why is it the president has the authority to ignore the law. that is a dangerous precedent.
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if president obama supports the dream that or anything else, he can push legislation through and have it considered. in san antonio, with the tax increase for increasing pre- school, you said to put it to the democratic process. i think that is the weight change should be done, not through executive assertions of a 40. >> through prosecutorial discretion, he said we will prioritize certain cases. he did not say we are writing off the books all of these other immigration cases, right? again, what you're doing is projecting into the future a result, just like with health care that has not happened yet. that is not what he said. process curatorial discretion exist -- prosecutorial discretion, as you know and you are a better attorney dan, exists in every single county courthouse all the way of to the upper levels of our government. is not breaking new ground pin he is not writing off these
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emigration cases. he is saying that we will prioritize those who have committed felonies, who are real criminals because that is how we believe that, with the resources that we have to spend, that we will keep our states safest. we want communities to be saved so we will start with the folks were criminals. >> he did a little more than that. he said we will not prosecute these people. it was not just that we will focus a lot of attention on others. the category people who violated a federal law -- >> and again, he did not write off those cases. he said the map for these two years, while congress has the opportunity, we hope to do something about this and change the landscape of the law. we will have this two-year pause. this is a temporary status.
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>> i want to apologize in advance. i don't know that i will get to everybody, but we will try. these guys can debate all day long, but we will go on. please make them quick questions. >> my question is for both and gentlemen, but more for mr. cruz. as he advocates for spending cuts, there is a country in the world right now that instituted immediate, consistent austerity and that is great britain. in the coalition government, they cut spending dramatically. thus far, they have failed to produce the economic recovery that it was promised to produce.
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in fact, i think recently, britain has dipped back into recession. so what makes him think that it will work here. >> austerity has not worked well in a lot of places. >> your solving the problems they're paired i don't disagree that government spending cuts on their own don't necessarily produce growth. the reason you see spending cuts is because our national debt now exceeds the gross domestic product and you're trying to pull it back from the brink, in terms of growth, my priorities in the usa would be to lead the effort to dramatically shrink the size of our and the standing of the federal government. to get growth going, thethe twos are tax reform. if we can ease the regulatory burden, the tax burden and have a fundamental tax reform, that
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is how you get gdp up. cutting spending is primarily directed at pulling a nation back from the brink. >> thank you. i am a student at the university of texas. i want to ask a question about young people in general and the cost of higher education skywrite taking -- sky rocketing. student loans have skyrocketed at what -- as well. last year of college graduates, as many as half of them were either unemployed or underemployed. what is your message for people like me looking into the future in terms of job prospects and how i will fare? >> would say first stick with what is going to be paid hurt in
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the 21st central global economy, which is getting an education, getting the technical skills it takes to succeed. my fear is in the coming years folks who have the ability to go to college or get a technical training or university may choose not to, thinking they do not want to encourage student debts. reforms have made it better for students. secondly, you are never going to hurt results by educating yourself. those would be generally light, two pieces of advice. >> if there is no way i can get a job, do i want to put myself through $40,000 in debt doing that? >> there is no question that the job market today is not the job
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market of america when it was full throttle -- >> just a few minutes left on this debate. you can see in its entirety at c-span.org. this is getting under way from the federalist society. >> our moderator today is pete williams. he is well known for being one of the first journalists to get the reporting right on that long ago december evening when the decision came down in bush vs. gore. we are grateful to him for leading the discussion today. >> each of our panelists has a set of cases to produce.
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"playboy" magazine has just declared the university of virginia as the top party school. >> i was in the library the whole time. >> into a dozen 6, he became the first lawyer to fill a position, assistant attorney general for -- and is now in private practice. ken, please. >> i always thought it was dangerous to be on a panel that starts with a reference to "playboy." i have been asked about three cases, and national security case, and then other cases.
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clapper vs. amnesty international, a standing case related to a challenge of the fisa amendments act. fisa was passed to a dozen a, an amendment of the foreign intelligence surveillance act passed in 1978. you have to understand the merits of little bit. >> for those watching on c-span, what is standing? >> whether a party has a right to appear in court and challenge the statutes. the plaintiffs are attorneys, human rights activists, and others who are in regular contact with people overseas, people who might be the subject of electronic surveillance by the federal government, and they are challenging the law that
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allows this because they are concerned their communications will be picked up. they claim they have standing to challenge the law, their communications will get picked up, and in the course of that surveillance, they have the right to challenge that in court. that is the standing issue. to get to the merits, fisa passed in 1978 and the aftermath about abuses, it set up a system by which the executive branch would have to go to the court in d.c. and get permission when they wanted to do wiretapping for national security purposes. this is a way of making sure the court -- it had a check and a role in reviewing the efforts to do this wiretapping, which had been abused when there had not
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been a court. the problem with the statute designed in 1978 is congress tried to limit it sold its focus on communications inside the united states. it was the side in a way that did not require going to the court. the problem is that i -- in defining the parameters of what communications -- surveillance required court approval, the statute referred to the technology at the time, those communications that were wired, radioed, or satellite technology. since 1978 we have seen a dramatic change of the technology of communications, particularly fiber optic cables, which has changed the court order karmic the government
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faces when they try to get this case tektronix surveillance. the result is that leading up to 9/11 there are many instances where the government would have to go to get an order from the fisa court before they could wiretaps and the overseas. that was not the intent of fisa originally. the amendments at of 2008 was meant to address that problem. what it did was say that if the government is trying to surveil somebody overseas and they have a reasonable basis to believe that person is overseas and not end the united states, they do not have to go to the court for a particular provision. that was what was different about the 2008 statute, because it allowed the government to go forward with communications surveillance for a number of people without having to get special permission for each and every communication. the problem is that for people
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like the plaintiffs in this case, that meant their communications might get swept up as well, even though they were in the united states by merit of communicating with somebody out there. the merits will be fought out sunday, but a couple questions here as to but were not there is a foreign intelligence exception to the requirement, and the fisa court found that there is. the supreme court has not ruled on that, and whether this communication, whether it is reasonable, or if it is not satisfied at the requirement, if it is reasonable. the issue is one of standing. the plaintiffs say they have standing because they are being incidentally wiretapped because they are communicating with people overseas. they are having to travel to meet these people in person, like their clients who are overseas, to avoid being
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intercepted. therefore, they are spending money having to travel, and it is a chilling their vacation because of their concern of what they say to their clients might get picked up. that is the injury they claim they have. the government says that injury is illusory. it is no different than maybe an attorney for a mafia crime family who will say -- who will challenge the criminal wiretaps statute because of the concern of the mafia clans might pick up in wiretaps. you have no right to challenge an otherwise valid communication by electronic surveillance because you might incidentally get connected pick -- collected. the government says there is the standing, no injuries that they can cite that they would to go to court. the stakes are the following -- one, if steny is found and -- if
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standing is found and the court case goes forward, that would undermine a valuable collection effort. the fisa amendments act is up for reauthorization this year, and the attorney general has filed a letter saying it is enormously important in the effort against terrorists and other foreign threats. a second concern is that if they find standing in this case, that would probably lead to other challenges by people who have lesser injuries to be able to cite that would mean that more cases would come into court where intelligence programs are being challenged, there would be secrets about those intelligence programs, and that would undermine national security. the last issue and the most global at the airport is if standing is found in this case,
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it is more likely that a similar case would be brought to the court and more likely that judges as opposed to legislatures or the executive branch would regulate these policy issues about alliance that should be drawn around intelligence programs. that would be a shift in the separation of powers and the thing that would be on the forefront of the minds of the justices when they decide this. as the national security case. -- that is that national security case. another case is bailey vs. united states. the question is the extent of the ruling in 1981, called michigan vs. summers, that says if law enforcement agents find and architect any premises, they can detain the occupants while
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execute the search warrant. the police that follow that person some distance and stop that person away from the premises. in this case what happened is you had a defendant -- an informant come forward and say there was drug dealing at a certain location, police got a search warrant, they surveiled house, sought a man fitting the description of the person the informant had said was a drug dealer operating out of application. that man left with another man, got in a car, and drove away. the police fought them and stop them. he made state missed connecting insult to the premises. the police brought him back, and the search had been conducted, and officers had found guns and drugs in the location, and they arrested him. the evidence seized in the house
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-- he claimed he had been stopped billy crist had been stopped illegally. the argument in short is the following? they look at the rationale for the opinion and a justification cited there for the police have the authority to detain people on the location of the search warrant, and those are a danger to police, keeping people who are on the premises from distracting the police while they're doing a search, and keeping people from fleeing. said we had -- dept driven away. you did not have to worry about flight because we did not even know the search warrant was happening.
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the government policy response is in this day and age everybody has a cell phone, could have gotten a text, gotten a gun out, and taken on the police officer. there is the same concern about disrupting the search because they could have come back and gotten in the wake of the search. the government is advocating a world that so long as they stop the person as soon as reasonably practicable, a rule of summers applies. the significance is what the government is proposing is a further extension of the ability to detain somebody incident to a search warrant. just as we have seen in the reverse of the years, there has been an expansion of the right to search. seeing the same thing in this area. a footnote, this might be a victory for the defense if they
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win because even if they win funding summers issue, the government can still argue that the stock was a legitimate, they had a reasonable suspicion, and it is therefore ballot and the evidence obtained could still be admissible. i was asked to talk about another case which is a case -- >> why don't you take a minute and a half? >> maryland vs. king is a fourth and then a cake, and the question is here to the liberty of the state and federal laws that allow for the collection of swabs of cells from the insides of mouths of people who have been arrested. there as 27 states who have laws allow officers to swap the inside of any mouth of
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anybody arrested, and that gets put into the system who helps to identify the person, but also connect them to other crimes. in this case in maryland king was arrested for burglary, with ad, it comes back for hit for a case involving rape. the court of appeals ultimately found it should have been suppressed. thereby, and validating the law in maryland which is the law in 26 other states allowing the swapping -- swabbing people are arrested. they did a balancing of that defendant's privacy.
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can think what factors are here. how intrusive is it? a swat in the mouth-- a swab in the mouth. this process subjected the defendant having his whole dna profile be exposed to the government, and that that was and interested search that should not be allowed appeared the state responded the defendant bus interest is not that strong, and in fact, they -- when you do a profile, they do not determine anything about the genetic characteristics, it is just matched against other samples. the government is arguing that aside the fact that defendant's interest is not that strong, the government lost interest is
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strong, because they need to identify the person arrested, but also the ability to get the swabs to bounce it off a database around the country to see what other crimes this person may have committed. that is the argument. the stakes are high, because that process has been tremendously important both at finding people and incriminating them for crime, but also exonerating people for crimes they did not commit. >> thank you. if you have not run into commentary by our next panelist, you do not get out much. stuart taylor has written about legal affairs for every big- name publication. he is a princeton graduate and heat sometimes practices what he preaches as a lawyer. he was one of the first to warn
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against the rush to judgment in a case, and now he has a new book about affirmative action called "mismatch." it is kind of the to summarize the entire book in the title. he is the co-author -- -- >> you do not need to buy it. >> stuart , why don't you start with that. >> this requires a confession of bias, but also helps me with homework. the case is the first affirmative action case the court has heard since 2003, which will be argued on october 10. i will spend time on another case which is a workplace harassment case.
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we argue in the amicus brief that black students are often harmed by racial preferences by being put in academic environments without warning. they are ill-prepared to compete with some of the most competitive students in the country. we also argue under principles previously established by the supreme court, the university texas racial preference system at issue in this case is unconstitutional, although there are respectable arguments both ways, and i think the reason -- the reason i think fisher is a good bet to become the most important affirmative action case ever is simply the change in composition of the court sick last affirmative action case in 2003, and the two university of michigan cases.
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the court split 5-4, opening the door wide as long as quotas are avoided, as long as things are holistic, to large racial preferences in admissions, and has served as a model for universities around the country at every level, medical, law school, a director of school, to expand their use of racial preferences, even though it is reported to lay down principles that would restrain the use of racial preferences. the reason we think they will not to say texas winds is maidenly that justice sandra day o'connor retired in 2005, was replaced by justice alito, who clearly is a vote against racial preferences and so now we have
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four saw what votes in favor of racial preferences, four votes against racial preferences, and the more conservative justice kennedy who has set in so many cases right middle. in gruder, kennedy joined the majority in one critical point, that racial diversity as educational benefits that are substantial enough to make it a compelling interest that there is justifying the use of racial preferences if necessary to get this kind of racial diversity. kennedy dissented forcefully the narrow tailoring requirements. he said that the university had failed to show it had met a number of the principles that the majority had laid down and that the majority had given far too much difference to the university's claims.
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the principles are briefly that racial preferences should not be restored it to until race- neutral alternatives have been exhausted to serve the interests of racial diversity, that racial balancing is absolutely barred, and the context suggests the court means seeking to mirror the proportion of various groups in the population at large, either nationally or in the state, and also that racial preferences should not be perpetual. the court said in 25 years which expect this will not be necessary anymore. that is 2028. the logical application of the statement in gruder was that universities would not wait until the last day of the 24th year and then just stop. but there has been no sign that any university in the country i know of has been slowing down its use of racial preferences.
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if anything, the contrary. there is some internal tensions within the gruder opinion that will be worked out somewhat fisher. so large are the stakes that hundreds of organizations representing every major establishment, institution in america, from educational establishes to corporate america and a lot of military people, at all weighed in on the side of the university of texas. the establishment is totally bought in to racial preferences for better or worse for it by contrast -- and that is hundreds of organizations in 73 at this brief strike . 17 briefs have been filed on the other side. this bright illustrate a stunning disconnect on the racial preference issue between the establishment institutions, the people who run institutions
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who have various reasons to want a formula for racial peace , and the american public at large, which has always disapproved by racial preferences by wide margins in any poll that makes it clear how they operate. does the moment. -- just a moment. five of the current justices would have struck down the university of michigan regime that justice o'connor upheld. justice kennedy being the fifth. he has never said that racial preferences should be banned entirely. to the contrary, he says that there may be a compelling interest in some way somewhere. he has never identified such a case where -- the issue in one sense in this case is whether kennedy will think this case meets either greater justification for racial
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preference then the university of michigan law school debt, or if it establishes a precedent he is bound to follow. one interesting thing, because there was a lot of talk, that while the court would not have credit this case, they did not have to pick it had standing problems. i was assured by supreme court experts there was not a chance they would grant it. i am a little sore at them because when they granted it it ruined my book publication schedule. when they did, some people said obviously they are granting this in order to take a black at affirmative action. why else would they do it? i have said that. i remind myself, it only takes for the vote to grant the case. did kennedy but to grant this case? is he eager to whack affirmative action? we will not know that for a while. maybe you'll find that on october 10. maybe four justices who want to
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take a whack cited this was the only train that was going by for a while, and if justice kennedy would say no. that argument that these preferences pass muster under gruder was upheld by a unanimous panel by the fifth circuit of appeals, including a reluctant judge whose opinion said i hate racial preferences, but the supreme court has tied my hands and left me no choice, so i have to uphold them. seven of the 16 judges of the fifth circuit voted to grant rehearing, said they did not theircgruder tied hands.
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even i cannot whack these racial preferences, so you will have to give me more ammunition. there are strong arguments on both sides. the best argument for texas is the court said you cannot have numbers, " this, part that's. we do not have any things. not that many people are involved here. the number of kids admitted based on individual or racial preferences to the university of texas on top of that 10% plan, which is not at issue, and the challenge to the requirement to the requirement that the top 10% of any high school be admitted, that the number admitted on top of that, blacks and hispanics, based on racial preferences is not large grid that is true. the argument coming back to the he

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